I have recently been getting back into audiobooks and was discussing them with a friend when this question came up. Obviously picture/comic books, manga and the like would not work in the format, but what other kind of books would not work in an audio format?

I was thinking House of Leaves for the obvious reasons, but is there a book you can think of that narratively or otherwise would not be well translated to audiobook?

OR a book that would need to be read in a certain way in order for an audio format to work?

  • PunyParker826BEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    “Wouldn’t work” is maybe a strong word for these cases, but in Misery, Paul Sheldon’s busted-up typewriter keeps losing keys, which you can visually see in the typed-out segments of the new book he’s being forced to write.

    Also, Flowers for Algernon (the short story, at least) uses a similar trick with Charlie Gordon; the book is Charlie’s journal, and you can visually see >!his writing progress from very simple sentences filled with typos, all the way to dense, highly intelligent monologues and scientific findings. It makes it even more heartbreaking when his intelligence starts to recede, and you watch him not only panic as he feels his mind reverting, but lose his literacy as his writing gradually returns to what it was before.!<

  • Weekly-MathBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I have been reading a lot of classic greek lit (On Histories by Herodotus now). These books would be terrible as audiobooks due to the sheer number of footnotes and language used.

    • the-tea-queenOPBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Question of the day has been how to turn footnotes into voiced reading…

  • 8heistB
    1·
    10 months ago

    I keep getting Audible ads for a book on Japanese woodworking joints.